


Slow Movement

by Lila_Cross



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-24 18:55:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22262806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lila_Cross/pseuds/Lila_Cross
Summary: This isn't how Ben Solo dies. Not if Rey has anything to say about it.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	Slow Movement

“Ben?”

Rey’s voice sounded out small and wretched, a tiny croak nowhere near loud enough to echo around the vast destruction of the giant cavern.

He had just... they had just... he had been warm and his mouth soft.

Now he was... gone?

The solidness of his arms around her had fallen away, and though she followed the movement of his limp body to the ground, she hadn’t been able to stop his head from hitting just a little, and it was that more than anything that started the filling of her heart with horror. She would not let him be hurt ever again, not ever.

Between one blink and the next, though, he was gone. Only the funereal black of his clothes remaining to tell her that he had been there at all.

“Ben?”

Rey’s voice was louder now and there was something building in her chest.

“Ben?!”

Her hands pulled and twisted the fabric of his shirt, which somehow smelled like the bunk on the Falcon, and sobs fell out of her open mouth. She wanted to keep saying his name, but all she could manage was a high keening wail, like the never-ending echo of the ripper-raptors hovering over Kelvin Ridge.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. This hadn’t been what she saw. This. Wasn’t. Fair.  
She didn’t want this life if his had to be forfeit for it. That’s not a way she could live. Rey grew up bartering, and this was a trade she hadn’t agreed to. And like those times when the junk bosses had tried to cheat her, Rey could feel her rage stir.

Instead of pushing it down, though, as she used to in order to survive, here with the meager remains of her dyad’s existence in her arms, Rey reached towards that rage. She imagined the tall, fine form of Ben Solo, and reached inward and inward and inward. Toward that wellspring of the Force that had never failed her since he had pushed his way into her mind. Around her, Rey could feel the ground start shaking, and a heat building from the very heart of her. Rocks were falling now. The heat grew.

“Rey?”

She did not open her eyes. She knew well enough what Luke’s voice sounded like. He had no part in this.  
“Rey, please. Stop. You must stop.”

Luke’s voice wasn’t panicked, but she could hear the uneasiness there. The same uneasiness he had always spoken of his nephew with. Rey bore down harder on the image of Ben in the center of her; she could feel her heart pounding as if she were running flat out.

“Rey. Do not do this. He’s gone. Rey. He loved you, and he gave himself to save you. If you do this, you don’t know what will happen! He’s gone!”

The heat and light vibrated within Rey like an existence at the heart of a star. She gathered the power in her hands and turned to look at Ben’s uncle one last time. She wanted Luke to see the depth of her resolve to save him. Let the last Jedi live with that for eternity.

Beyond Luke’s ephemeral blue form, Rey could make out another- younger, more traditionally handsome than Ben, but with a scar similar to his. Behind Luke’s panicked face, she saw the young man in Jedi robes nod, and smile at her.

“No one’s ever really gone.”

The power Rey had harnessed boiled up and over and with a cry she released it all. The shock destroyed the cavern, and then the planet, and then the present time.

The future where Ben Solo died barely having lived no longer existed.


End file.
